Report 2016-124 Recommendation 4 Responses

Report 2016-124: Department of General Services and California Department of Technology: Neither Entity Has Provided the Oversight Necessary to Ensure That State Agencies Consistently Use the Competitive Bidding Process (Release Date: June 2017)

Recommendation #4 To: Technology, California Department of

To improve its oversight of the State's noncompetitive contracting related to reportable IT projects and telecommunication procurements, Technology should create plans within 90 days for regularly performing statewide analyses of FI$Cal data to identify potential abuse or overuse of noncompetitive contracts. These analyses should include, but not be limited to, calculating the proportional value and number of the State's competitive and noncompetitive contracts and amendments, examining trends in agencies' use of noncompetitive contracts and amendments, and identifying unusual patterns among vendors receiving state contracts through noncompetitive means.

1-Year Agency Response

On January 31, 2018, CDT Statewide Technology Procurement (STP) developed and distributed to its staff Desktop Work Procedures to extract non-competitive bid transactional data stored in the FI$Cal system to conduct statewide analyses to detect potential abuse or overuse of noncompetitive contracts. STP staff are currently in the process of extracting non-competitive bid transactional data from the FI$Cal system for calendar year 2017, and analyzing the information to identify unusual patterns among vendors and trend in agencies' use of noncompetitive contracts and amendments.

Technology created plans to annually perform analyses of FI$Cal data to identify potential abuse or overuse of noncompetitive contracts.

6-Month Agency Response

CDT is working with the California Department of General Services staff to determine the method, approach, and process to extract data stored in the FI$Cal system. This information will be used to provide statewide analyses to detect potential abuse or overuse of noncompetitive contracts. Based on this, CDT's Statewide Technology Procurement (STP) is updating Desktop Work Procedures to provide staff with additional direction to run this report, analyze and identify unusual patterns among vendors and trend in agencies' use of noncompetitive contracts and amendments.

CDT modified the SharePoint database in September 2017, to link a specific Non-Competitive Bid (NCB) to the contract or contract amendment to which it relates. This allows CDT to identify the number of contracts and contract amendments a department acquired or amended via the noncompetitive process, the related dollar values, and investigate the department's usage for patterns and possible abuse of overuse.

Estimated Completion Date: January 2018

Response Date: December 2017

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status:
Pending

60-Day Agency Response

- CDT will be meeting next week with FI$Cal and DGS staff to determine the data is stored in the Fi$Cal system that will allow CDT to create plans which will ensure CDT staff perform consistent detailed statewide analyses of Fi$Cal or other system data to detect the potential abuse or overuse of noncompetitive contracts.

- CDT has begun to modify its SharePoint database to interface a specific NCB to the contract or contract amendment to which it relates. This will allow CDT to identify the number of contracts and contract amendments a department acquired or amended via the noncompetitive process, the related dollar values, and investigate the department's usage for patterns and possible abuse of overuse.